AMD RX 6500 XT pricing looks like seriously bad news for a ‘budget’ GPU

AMD RX 6500 XT pricing looks like seriously bad news for a 'budget' GPU

Gigabyte RX 6500 XT Eagle graphics card angle view

(Image credit: Gigabyte)

AMD's RX 6500 XT, the upkeep GPU revealed at CES 2022 alongside the RX 6400, is due to hit shelves tomorrow, but prices take already popped up in Europe – and the news isn't good.

In fact, the RX 6500 XT is starting to look like a not-remotely-budget graphics card, with pricing hitting double the recommended level in France, which is seriously disappointing.

French retailers have slapped price tags of between €350 (around $400, £290, AU$555) and almost €380 (around $430, £320, AU$600) on 6500 XT cards from Gigabyte, which is steeper than even the rumor mill'south previous gloomy predictions.

It was thought the 6500 XT would command a toll of €300 (around $340, £250, AU$475) going past past leaks from France, and recollect that Asus in Germany recently confirmed a rumored request cost of €300 (for its base model), as VideoCardz, which spotted all this, reminds the states.

And then, the manifestly truth is that even those cost levels, which were already considerably inflated from the expectations of a graphics card that AMD unveiled in the U.s. with an MSRP of $199 (around £145, AU$275), turned out to exist underestimating the amount we would be overcharged for the privilege of buying i of these GPUs (at least in Europe, anyway).

Analysis: Sort of non affordable in the slightest, sadly

This is the graphics card which AMD's CEO, Lisa Su, said would be "sort of affordable to the mainstream" with the aforementioned United states of america recommended price of $199.

However, if the GPU is more broadly saddled with the kind of pricing indicated in these initial retailer listings in Europe, then it could hardly be described as affordable in whatever mode, shape or class. It wasn't all that long ago that a mid-to-high range GPU would run to a few hundred notes, not a upkeep menu (well, alright, it was quite some time ago, just we yet think it with some clarity – and fondly, unsurprisingly).

What's perhaps worse hither is that the Gigabyte 6500 XT variant in question is the Eagle carte du jour, not the manufacturer'south top-of-the-range product. All in all, this is another serious blow for the consumer looking to purchase a half-decent contemporary GPU without taking a large clamper out of their wallet.

As we were banging on virtually at the terminate of 2021, the low-cease of the graphics carte du jour world is getting ridiculous, and Squad Red'southward new GPU was supposed to exist function of the solution – not adding to the trouble. But when retailers know full well that desperate folks – or scalpers – will pay well over the odds for stock which is thin on the ground, then the situation becomes rather inevitable.

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Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best office of three decades, and writes books in his spare fourth dimension (his debut novel - 'I Know What Y'all Did Final Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).